Please, avoid Manhattan’s SoHo. But if, because of a subway fritz or nuclear attack you find yourself near 546 Broadway, and you are a sheep-like sort who thinks, “I do not exist until I am a slave of fashion,” dash to the Uniqlo clothing store, the Japanese megabrand’s U.S. beachhead. There, you can add meaning to your pathetic life while checking out clothes manufactured by Indonesian slaves. Uniqlo doesn’t care about the slaves. What it cares about is competing with the Gap, at lower prices. The store, Soho’s second largest after Bloomingdales, tries to be interesting, installing a glass aquarium and revolving mannequins near the front where tourists and yuppie scum can feel oh-so-briefly hip.
Nobuo Domae, chief executive of Uniqlo USA, hopes American suckers, er, consumers will spend as much as $1 billion in the U.S. stores by 2010.
-- Monieca Shiwratan